Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Powell) [PAGE 644]

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604

History Umvemty of Illinois

pense, for whatever cause, and much more in a case where such expense would he superfluous. The establishment of a school for mechanical instruction elsewhere than in Chicago, either alone, or as part of a broader institution, to include the study of agriculture, would necessarily occasion a large expenditure. Here everything is in readiness to proceed. It has been already suggested, that the State must advance the means to put whatever institution is established in operation, and it should not be forgotten by the friends of agriculture, that by so much less as it will cost to establish a mechanical institution in Chicago, by so much more will it be in the ability of the State to advance the means of promoting that branch of study which relates peculiarly to them. The undersigned, at the outset of this paper, had it in mind to state, first: some of their reasons for the establishment of two distinct institutions for the several branches of agriculture and mechanics, and then to give some further reasons why a school for the latter branch should be located in Chicago. This would have been the natural division of the subject, but the under* signed, especially under the necessitated haste in which this paper is prepared, find it impossible to maintain this distinction. It will be found that the reasons themselves intermingle and over-lap each other; almost every reason that can be suggested in favor of the establishment of distinct institutions for the separate branches of agriculture and mechanics, will also be found to be a reason for locating the mechanical school at Chicago. Without attempting, therefore, further, to preserve a distinction which they find impossible to keep constantly in view, the undersigned will proceed to give such other reasons as occur to them, in favor of the establishment of a distinct school of mechanics at Chicago. *M$b 1 matter of no small consequence to the interests of the ^jttjl^that the institution, wherever, or under whatever auspices establish©^ should become self-supporting, or at least at B ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ H ^ ^ M i moment upproximate that point-&f*ow is l l l l any place | | the State of Illinois at all comparable to Chicago in this respect ] Here are the greatest number of pupils,